Intuitive Machines, the corporate that pulled off the this time final 12 months with its Odysseus spacecraft, is gearing up for one more shot at touching the lunar floor. Its second flight (CLPS) program is scheduled to take off no sooner than Wednesday February 26, launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The corporate is as soon as once more sending certainly one of its Nova-C landers, this one nicknamed Athena. It’s anticipated to take a couple of week for Athena to journey to the moon, earlier than it makes a touchdown try round March 6.
Athena is carrying NASA devices together with a drill and mass spectrometer, which can be used to aim “one of many first on-site demonstrations of useful resource use on the moon,” in response to the house company. These instruments will measure volatiles within the soil on the touchdown website within the lunar South Pole. The mission additionally provides Intuitive Machines one other probability at touchdown its spacecraft with all six ft on the bottom. Odysseus, although profitable in touching down on the floor, .
